The present invention relates to a system for treating fabrics in rope form in a closed ring, either wet or dry.
In fabrics in rope form submitted to wet or dry processes it often happens that the fabric, more in some processes than in others, presents some lengthwise folds due to the advancement of the fabrics that during the successive stages of the process while passing through the active and advancement devices increase or remain, the folds being unwanted for the fabric after the process is finished.
The main cause of the forming and remaining of unwanted lengthwise folds is due to the repetitive passing of the fabric in rope form through the active devices or elements of the machine that operates the process without altering the position of such folds. Thus, for example, in the process of the fulling-washing machines, after passing through the actuator advancing cylinders, the rope form fabric passes through the retaining box, after which, directly or indirectly, it passes to the process bath located below, to rise again at the opposite side to the actuator cylinders, which can represent any appropriate construction and arrangement. In this case, the rope fabric, after it has been submitted to the compressing action of the cylinders, is retained in crankle folds in the retaining box, after which it passes through the lower bath and rises again to the actuator cylinders, in such a way that lengthwise folds formed on the fabric as it is passing through the actuator cylinders are kept in the same position when passing through the retaining box and the lower bath, and even though in this latter stage the fabric in rope form is opened in a certain ratio, lengthwise folds generally remain.